XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps

The XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps was a German cavalry corps formed by Russian anti-communist cossacks on 21 April 1943 as a cavalry brigade. The corps was led by Helmuth von Pannwitz, who was popular among his men for attending their Orthodox Christian ceremonies and for being assimilated into the cossack culture. On 25 February 1945, the cavalry corps was taken over by the Waffen-SS, and the corps was forced to surrender to the British Army and US Army in Austria in May 1945. The Soviet Union succeeded in persuading the Allied Powers to repatriate the cossacks to the Soviet Union, and 50,000 cossacks would be returned to the USSR; Pannwitz was executed for war crimes, while many officers were executed for treason.